“It’ll be some time,” McLellan said when asked about developing set lines with the players available. “We’ve got to look at how the opposition sets up as well. Do they have skating lines? Do they have physical lines? That kind of stuff. We’ll shuffle people around over the next little bit until we find comfortable combinations again.”

His lines had a different look Saturday night in a 3-2 shootout win over the Dallas Stars, but McLellan wasn’t ready to stand pat despite the win.

“We’re still not where we need to be and where we were,” he said. “Despite beating Dallas and coming from behind, we still have work to do and we’re trying to find the right way to get it done.”

****Logan Couture will be trying to prevent his goal-less streak from reaching 10 games tonight. He and McLellan both talked about the situation this morning and that’s the subject of the online story I filed earlier and available here .

****I talked yesterday with Marc-Edouard Vlasic about his time playing for Patrick Roy in junior hockey with the Quebec Remparts. Now a rookie NHL coach with the Colorado Avalanche, Roy was the veep for hockey operations when Vlasic was drafted by the Remparts at 16, then later coached him on a team that won the Memorial Cup. You can find that story here .

For the flip side of the connection, I asked Roy this morning for his thoughts on Vlasic’s development as an NHL defenseman.

“He was definitely one of my favorite when I was coaching in junior. Am I surprised to see where he is now? No,” Roy said.

Then he told a story about Vlasic’s first appearance in a Remparts training camp.

“I remember his first year in Quebec,” Roy said. “He was a 16-year-old and came to camp and we sent him back to midgets. Then after a week or so we changed our mind and said come and practice. He said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll show you I can play.’ By Christmas he was playing every game.

Roy shared credit for Vlasic’s devlelopment with Martin Laperierre, an assistant coach with the Remparts.

What are Roy’s thoughts on Vlasic as a candidate for Team Canada?

“He’s not a flashy guy out there,” Roy said. “You appreciate him when he’s on your team. You see him play so well. He’s playing big minutes, he’s always in the right position – I hope tonight he won’t be, but most of the time he’s always in the right place.”

****McLellan said he knows Roy by reputation, but not personally. But he did offer his assessment of what Roy has done to turn a basement-dwelling team into a serious playoff contender in less than three months.

“He’s done a tremendous job with that young team,” McLellan said. “You can tell when a team takes on its coaches personality and when players start to play for the coach and I think that’s happening there.”

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.